Colin Goddard knows what it's like to be in a classroom when an armed man bursts through the door and starts randomly shooting people. Goddard was a student at Virginia Tech when a gunman shot him and killed 32 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
"It was the most terrifying nine minutes of my life," Goddard told Terry Moran of "Nightline" Wednesday. "One moment you're conjugating French verbs, the next you're shot."
Four of Seung-Hui Cho's bullets hit Goddard April 16, 2007. Three of the bullets are still in him and serve as a constant reminder in his work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Goddard does more than just lobby and appear in public-service announcements. He says he goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy guns without any background check. It's the subject of his documentary called "Living for 32," after the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
"There is not one thing that will stop all shootings," Goddard said. " There's not one policy that will save us all, but a background check is something that will make it more difficult for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun."
School Shooting Survivor Documents Gun Law Fight Watch Video
Virginia Tech Documentary Debuts at Sundance Watch Video
In "Living for 32," Goddard says he was able to buy, for example, an Egyptian Maadi AK-47, a TEC-9 and a MAC-11 machine pistol at gun shows across the United States.
"I bought the same gun that was used to shoot me," he said. "I bought it all, all without a background check and it was all legal. My question is, 'Why is that legal?'"
Only licensed dealers are required by law to perform background checks on the people to whom they sell guns while private sellers can make gun-show sales with no background checks.
This is known as the "gun-show loophole" and Goddard has made it his mission to close it.
In one instance, Goddard was able to buy the Maadi Egyptian for $660 and was told by the dealer "there's no tax and no paperwork."
The dealer requested to see Goddard's Ohio driver's license. When Goddard couldn't provide it, he was still able to purchase the gun by providing an Ohio address instead.
"I didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first," he said. "And then once I did it once, then twice, then three times. I was like, 'Wow, this is really easy.'
"Toward the end I wasn't even thinking about it. I tried to do it as quickly as I could, say as few words as I could."
Polls show that a majority of Americans favor closing the loophole.
Goddard says closing the loophole won't end all gun violence, but that the government can do better.
The Brady Campaign recently launched a YouTube series, "We Are Better than This," in the wake of last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The videos feature celebrities and, perhaps more significantly, families of mass-shooting victims.
In the first three videos, Goddard appears, as do Lonnie and Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Redfield Ghawi, died in the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting in July.
NEW YORK: Time magazine on Wednesday named the recently re-elected US President Barack Obama as its person of the year for 2012 -- the second time it has accorded him this honor.
The venerable American news magazine said the United States is in the midst of huge cultural and demographic changes and Obama is "both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America."
The magazine noted that Obama was the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to win more than 50 per cent of the vote in two straight elections and the first since 1940 to be re-elected despite a jobless rate above 7.5 per cent.
Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney soundly in November's election to win a second four year term.
"In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union," said Time, which named Obama person of the year in 2008 when he became America's first black president.
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in September of this year
He was the first U.S. ambassador murdered since 1988
Along with Stevens, three other Americans were killed
(CNN) -- They were hiding in a place security officers called a "safe area." It was anything but.
Outside an angry crowd grew, gunfire rang out and a fire blazed.
Thick smoke blinded the three trapped men. The intruders banged on the fortified safety gate of the bunker-like villa.
A security officer handed his cell phone to Ambassador Chris Stevens. Prepare for the mob to blast open the locks of the safety gate, the officer said.
Security blog: Benghazi review critical of State's diplomatic security
Attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya
HIDE CAPTION
<<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
>
>>
It was a little before 10 at night on September 11, 2012. And time was running out for Stevens.
Vivid new details of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were released Tuesday night by a federal committee trying to come to grips with the violence that led to the first murder of a U.S. ambassador since 1988 and the deaths of three other Americans.
The report spoke of grossly inadequate security, an issue that Stevens had complained about well before September 11.
Read more: nquiry cites 'failures' at State Department
The brief phone call
Instead of blasting their way into the villa, the crowd retreated for some reason. But the fire still blazed.
Stevens used the cell phone to try to alert others about the attack.
Struggling to see, choked by smoke, he dialed.
Read more: Benghazi problems suggest long list of changes
He may have wanted to tell embassy officials in Tripoli that he and the small security detail at that 13-acre compound were in big trouble.
They were outmanned, outgunned. The militants had doused a large area with diesel fuel and started a hideous fire.
He may have wanted to say that he was trapped in a building they called Villa C with a security officer, and Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.
They had to flee to the villa after intruders stormed the walled-in consulate compound armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
But in that 9:50 p.m. phone call, Stevens could only tell the U.S. deputy chief of the mission in Tripoli that they were under attack.
The call promptly dropped.
Warning signs
Though fierce and sudden, the attack may not have been surprising for some.
U.S. diplomats who worked in Libya, a country struggling to form a government after overthrowing longtime dictator Moammar Ghadafi,had repeatedly asked for more security.
American officials, for the most part, were well-received in Libya, where many locals were grateful for the help the United States provided in overthrowing Ghadafi.
But danger remained.
Read more: State Department: Clinton not dodging Benghazi hearings
There were still many Ghadafi loyalists, there was easy access to guns and the new fledgling government was having a difficult time maintaining security.
On June 1, a car bomb exploded outside a hotel in Tripoli where Stevens was staying.
Read more: Benghazi talking points omitted link to al Qaeda
The same month, Stevens had to move with his security team from the hotel because of a "credible' threat.
On June 6, a roadside bomb exploded near the U.S. compound in Benghazi, hurting no one but blasting a large hole in a wall of the compound.
The threats continued for U.S. officials and diplomats from other countries -- but security staffing remained unchanged.
The ambassador is missing
But now, there was no time to fret about woeful security.
Black smoke was filling up the safe area.
Stevens, Smith and the security officer crawled to a bathroom, hoping to open a window.
The security officer placed towels under the bathroom door and flung open the panes.
It made things worse.
The open window pulled more smoke into the bathroom, making breathing impossible.
Despite the explosions outside, they would have to flee the safe area, the officer thought. The smoke had choked out the lights. They were in total darkness.
The officer left the bathroom, crawled through a hallway, banging on the floor and yelling that the ambassador and Smith follow him.
He slipped though another window and collapsed in an enclosed patio area.
And then he noticed it.
Stevens and Smith were not there.
The officer slipped back through the window several times, even though the intruders were still shooting at him.
The smoke and heat was unbearable. He could not find either man.
He used a ladder to climb to the roof of the villa and radioed for help.
He had been in the smoky room for so long he could hardly speak. It took some time for the officers on the other end of the line to understand what he was saying.
He did not have Smith, he said. And the ambassador is missing.
The battle at the Annex
Three other security officers had barricaded themselves in another building when the siege began.
Once the first wave of attackers seemed to retreat, the officers got out of their "defensive" positions and drove an armored car to the villa. They found their colleague on the roof, vomiting, about to pass out.
The three officers crawled through the smoke inside.
Read more: Ex-CIA chief Petraeus testifies Benghazi attack was al Qaeda-linked terrorism
They found Smith. They dragged his body out. But they were too late.
A team, from a nearby U.S. facility called the Annex, arrived and helped search for Stevens. They could not find him.
Concerned that the large crowd of militants was about to overtake the entire compound, they decided to flee back to the Annex without Stevens.
Men in the crowd began shooting, the bullets almost piercing the armored vehicle and blowing out two of its tires.
They drove on. At least two vehicles followed them.
They made it to the Annex, preparing for another fight. It was about 11:30 at night.
Just before midnight, bullets began hitting the Annex. This started a gun battle that lasted for an hour.
Hours later, another wave of attacks hit the facility with mortars, killing security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
Finding Stevens
Hours passed and no one knew where Stevens was.
About 2 a.m., the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli received a phone call.
It was from the cell phone of the security officer who had given his phone to Stevens.
The man on the line spoke Arabic, telling embassy officials that Stevens had been taken to a hospital in Benghazi.
Officials could not determine what hospital Stevens was taken to.
Some wondered if the phone call was a trick from militants who wanted to lure U.S. officers to their death.
A Libyan official was sent to Benghazi Medical Center. He said Stevens was there.
Hospital staff said six civilians brought Stevens to the emergency room about 1:15 a.m.
Even though the ambassador showed no signs of life, doctors worked to revive him for 45 minutes.
It was too late.
This narrative account was pieced together from a report released Tuesday night by the Accountability Review Board, an independent panel selected by the State Department.
GENEVA Switzerland's UBS AG agreed Wednesday to pay some $1.5 billion in fines to international regulators following a probe into the rigging of a key global interest rate.
In admitting to fraud, Switzerland's largest bank became the second bank, after Britain's Barclays PLC, to settle over the rate-rigging scandal. The fine, which will be paid to authorities in the U.S., Britain and Switzerland, also comes just over a week after HSBC PLC agreed to pay nearly $2 billion for alleged money laundering.
The settlement caps a tough year for UBS and the reputation of the global banking industry. As well as being ensnared in the industry-wide investigation into alleged manipulations of the benchmark LIBOR interest rate, short for London interbank offered rate, UBS has seen its reputation suffer in a London trial into a multibillion dollar trading scandal and ongoing tax evasion probes.
As a result of the fines, litigation, unwinding of real estate investments, restructuring and other costs, UBS said it expects to post a fourth quarter net loss of between $2.2-2.7 billion.
Nevertheless, the Zurich-based bank maintained that it "remains one of the best capitalized banks in the world."
Other banks are expected to be fined for their involvement in the LIBOR scandal. LIBOR, which is a self-policing system and relies on information that global banks submit to a British banking authority, is important because it is used to set the interest rates on trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages and credit cards.
UBS characterized the probes as "industry-wide investigations into the setting of certain benchmark rates across a range of currencies."
The UBS penalty is more than triple the $450 million in fines imposed by American and British regulators in June on Barclays for submitting false information between 2005 and 2009 to manipulate the LIBOR rates. Those fines exposed a scandal that led to the departure of Chief Executive Bob Diamond and the announcement that Chairman Marcus Agius would step down at the end of the year.
In accepting the fines, UBS said some of its employees tried to rig the LIBOR rate in several currencies, but that its Japan unit, where much of the manipulation took place, entered a plea to one count of wire fraud in an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.
UBS said some of its personnel had "engaged in efforts to manipulate submissions for certain benchmark rates to benefit trading positions" and that some employees had "colluded with employees at other banks and cash brokers to influence certain benchmark rates to benefit their trading positions."
UBS added that "inappropriate directions" had been submitted that were "in part motivated by a desire to avoid unfair and negative market and media perceptions during the financial crisis."
Britain's financial regulator called the misconduct by UBS "extensive and broad" with the rate-fixing carried out from UBS offices in London and Zurich.
Different desks were responsible for different rate submissions. At least 2,000 requests for inappropriate submissions were documented -- an unquantifiable number of oral requests, which by their nature would not be documented, were also made, the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority said.
"Manipulation was also discussed in internal open chat forums and group emails, and was widely known," the FSA said. "At least 45 individuals including traders, managers and senior managers were involved in, or aware of, the practice of attempting to influence submissions."
Sergio Ermotti, who was appointed CEO of UBS AG in November 2012 in the wake of a major trading scandal, said the misconduct does not reflect the bank's values or standards.
"We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behavior. No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of the firm, and we are committed to doing business with integrity," he said.
With more than $2.4 trillion in invested assets, UBS is one of the world's largest managers of private wealth assets. At last count, the bank had 63,745 employees in 57 countries. It has said it aims for a headcount of 54,000 in 2015.
Along with Credit Suisse, the second-largest Swiss bank, UBS is on the list of the 29 "global systemically important banks" that the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements, the central bank for central banks, considers too big to fail.
It's not the first time that UBS has fallen afoul of regulators. Notably, in 2009, U.S. authorities fined UBS $780 million in 2009 for helping U.S. citizens avoid paying taxes.
The U.S. government has since been pushing Switzerland to loosen its rules on banking secrecy and has been trying to shed its image as a tax haven, signing deals with the United States, Germany and Britain to provide greater assistance to foreign tax authorities seeking information on their citizens' accounts.
In April, Ermotti called Switzerland's tax disputes with the United States and some European nations "an economic war" putting thousands of jobs at risk.
And in September 2011, the bank announced more than $2 billion in losses and blamed a 32-year-old rogue trader, Kweku Adoboli, at its London office for Britain's biggest-ever fraud at a bank.
Britain's financial regulator fined UBS, saying its internal controls were inadequate to prevent Adoboli, a relatively inexperienced trader, from making vast and risky bets. Adoboli has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
If there is one country that best represents the possibility of cutting gun crime by increasing gun control, it is Australia.
In 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant finished his lunch in a café in the seaside resort of Port Arthur and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle. In the first 15 seconds of his attack, he killed 12 and wounded 10. In all, he shot more than 50 people in six locations, killing 35. The worst mass shooting in Australia's history capped a violent decade of mass shootings that killed nearly 100 – and Australians had had enough.
Only 12 days later, Prime Minister John Howard – a conservative who had just been elected with the help of gun owners – pushed through not only new gun control laws, but also the most ambitious gun buyback program seen in recent memory.
The laws banned assault rifles, tightened gun owner licensing, and created national uniform registration standards. Howard knew they might be unpopular among some of the same voters who helped put him into office -- during one particularly hostile public town hall, he wore a bulletproof vest.
But something extraordinary happened: the laws tapped into public revulsion at the shooting and became extremely popular. And they became extremely effective.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
In the last 16 years, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia has fallen by more than 50 percent. The national rate of gun homicide is one-thirtieth that of the United States. And there hasn't been a single mass shooting since Port Arthur.
"It's not that we are a less violent people and that you are a more violent people," says Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney who runs GunPolicy.org, which tracks gun violence and gun laws across the world. "It's that you have more lethal means at your disposal."
But it wasn't just the new laws that made Australia safer. The gun buyback program collected nearly 650,000 assault weapons and 50,000 additional weapons – about one sixth of the national stock. Fewer guns on the street helped severely reduce the likelihood that guns could be used for a mass shooting.
"Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of gun owners simply, voluntarily gave up guns that they did not need to give up," Alpers told ABC News. "You could not be a gun owner during that period and not feel terribly persecuted, terribly under threat from public opinion. The commentaries were vicious."
Gun advocates hold up Australia's example as a reason to try similar laws in the United States, following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But Australians' willingness to give up their guns suggests a fundamental difference between Australia and the United States' gun cultures – and why Australia could be looked at for inspiration, rather than a model.
In the U.S., the founding fathers wrote gun ownership into the country's bedrock documents. Gun owners have long seen their weapons as a sign of freedom.
"But Australians are predisposed toward not having guns," Alpers argues. "We take it for granted that you license the gun owner and you register the firearm. Just as you do with a car. In the United States, everything went in the different direction."
So gun control advocates urge the Obama administration to look at certain steps Australia took – but not necessarily reproduce them.
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Sports Hub has appointed SMRT Alpha to lease and operate 41,000 square metres of commercial retail space at the Singapore Sports Hub.
This new joint venture is a partnership between subsidiaries of SMRT and NTUC FairPrice.
The retail mall and waterfront area will feature a variety of indoor and alfresco food and beverage outlets.
For shoppers, the mall will offer a wide range of stores and amenities.
Tenants will also include a FairPrice Xtra hypermarket at the mall, providing affordable daily essentials and groceries, as well as sportswear and sporting equipment, catering to the needs of the residents and shoppers in the area.
The Singapore Sports Hub will be opened and fully operational in April 2014.
NEWTOWN, Conn. With security stepped up and families still on edge in Newtown, schools are opening for the first time since last week's massacre, bringing a return of familiar routines -- at least, for some -- to a grief-stricken town as it buries 20 of its children.
Play Video
Holiday week is full of funerals for Newtown, Conn.
Two 6-year-old boys were laid to rest Monday in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals. A total of 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history.
While classes resume Tuesday for Newtown schools -- except for students at Sandy Hook -- some parents were likely to keep their children at home anyway. Local police and school officials have been discussing how and where to increase security, and state police said they will be on alert for threats and hoaxes.
Suzy DeYoung said her 15-year-old son is going back to the high school.
"I think he wants to go back," she said. "If he told me he wants to stay home, I'd let him stay home. I think going back to a routine is a good idea; at least that's what I hear from professionals."
On Monday, Newtown held the first two funerals of many the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people will face over the next few days, just as other towns are getting ready for the holidays. At least one funeral is planned for a student -- 6-year-old Jessica Rekos -- as well as several wakes, including one for teacher Victoria Soto, who has been hailed as a hero for sacrificing herself to save several students.
Play Video
Funerals begin for Conn. shooting victims
Two funeral homes filled Monday with mourners for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, both 6 years old. A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.
"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.
"Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future," she said. "You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos."
She closed by saying: "Momma loves you, little man."
Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.
At Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket. Jack was among the youngest members of a youth wrestling association in Newtown, and dozens of little boys turned up at the service in gray Newtown Wrestling T-shirts.
Jack was a fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and was laid to rest in a Cruz jersey.
In the middle of town, an ever-growing memorial has become a pilgrimage site for strangers who want to pay their respect.
One man told CBS Station WCBS why he visited: "Because I'm a dad with four beautiful daughters, when I found out it broke my heart. It's hard to sleep, I don't know how to feel."
Authorities say the man who killed the two boys and their classmates, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury -- and why he singled out the school -- federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
Play Video
Political reaction to Newtown, CT tragedy
Play Video
Gun sales on the rise after Conn. shooting
Play Video
CBS News poll: Strong support for tougher gun laws
"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.
Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown.
Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.
Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.
"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."
Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.
"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.
"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.
The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.
The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.
Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.
Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.
Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
The outlines of a national debate on gun control have begun to take shape. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."
Carney did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health professionals in coming weeks.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flanked by shooting survivors and relatives of victims of gunfire around the country, pressed Mr. Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement after the Newtown massacre.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
"This is bigger than just about guns," he added. "It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad."
iPhone, iPad and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.
